Sunbeam Pressure Cooker Lawsuit Results in $56 Million Jury Verdict

Jury award includes $50 million in punitive damages meant to punish the manufacturers for willful or reckless endangerment of consumers.

A federal jury in Colorado has ordered Sunbeam, and its parent company Newell Brands Inc., to pay $55 million in damages to a woman whose pressure cooker exploded, causing her to be hospitalied with second- and third-degree burns.

The lawsuit was brought by Georgina Perez of Colorado, who indicated that her Express Crock Multi-Cooker exploded, showering her with the boiling hot contents in June 2019. The complaint (PDF) indicated that Perez had been cooking beans the day of the explosion and went to press the steam release 20 minutes after they were supposedly done cooking. However, as she did so, the Crock Pot exploded, spraying her face and chest. She indicated she had been following the user manual’s directions at the time.

Perez suffered burns across 13% of her body and had to receive extensive skin grafts. In addition, her sweat glands were damaged, meaning it is now difficult to regulate her temperature.

The lawsuit is just one of hundreds of similar pressure cooker explosion lawsuits filed against Sunbeam and manufacturers of other popular devices, including Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi and others. Each raises similar allegations that the modern electronic devices are prone to explode when the lid is removed, even after the device indicates all steam has been released.

Following a trial in Colorado federal court that ended on December 13, the jury issued a verdict (PDF) in Perez’s favor, determining Sunbeam and Newell were liable for failure to warn, defective design and negligence.

The jury awarded Perez $2 million for physical impairment, $3.5 million for noneconomic damages, and then added an additional $15 million against Sunbeam and $35 million against Newell in punitive damages.

The jury determined that Sunbeam was 27% responsible for Perez’s injuries, Newell was 63% responsible, and that Perez was only 10% responsible for what happened.

The pressure cooker model Perez used was part of a Crock-Pot Multi-Cooker recall issued a little more than a year after her incident. The recall affected more than 1 million products, after more than 100 reports of the lids detaching due to pressure inside the devices, resulting in similar burns and injuries.

It has been followed by a number of similar recalls impacting large numbers of products sold by other companies in recent years. A Best Buy Insignia pressure cooker recall was announced last year, impacting nearly 1 million devices, and a Sensio pressure cooker recall pulled about 900,000 devices off store shelves a few months later. Both were linked to pressure cooker explosions linked to failures of the lid safety designs.

Given design problems linked to products sold by various manufacturers, including Ninja Foodi, Instant Pot, Crock Pot and others, financial compensation may be available to those who have suffered injuries due to pressure cooker explosions. Pressure cooker injury lawyers provide free consultations to help determine whether individuals nationwide are eligible to pursue a lawsuit.